The Reservation
The Reservation, also known as by its pre-war name Los Alamos is a postwar region based around the pre-war Los Alamos National Laboratory, which includes the ruins of the pre-war city of Los Alamos and most of the surrounding area of the Jemez Mountains of former New Mexico. History Pre-war Prior to 1942, Los Alamos was a small settlement consisting of the Los Alamos Ranch School, however, after the location was selected for the Manhattan Project, the project to build the first atomic bomb, the school was closed down and a large laboratory complex was constructed. The facility and surrounding residences for the scientists were secure facilities with access heavily restricted. The Los Alamos Facility was used for the design of the bomb, while uranium and plutonium production occurred at Oak Ridge and Hanford sites. The existence of facility at Los Alamos was officially made public in 1945 after the end of the Second World War and in 1947 it was designated as Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The laboratory would officially gain the status as a National Laboratory in 1981, and during this period, the city of Los Alamos would grow around the laboratory. By 2000 the majority of the population of the city was employed by the laboratory, which had over 10,000 employees. For its official recognition in 1947 until 2077, Los Alamos was major center for research by the US Military and Department of Energy into nuclear weapons, nuclear power, space travel, computer technology, and energy weapons, among other fields. Among the technologies that were developed at least in part at Los Alamos were numerous nuclear weapons designs, including micro-nuclear weapons, colloquially know as "mini-nukes", which were developed in the 2050s. Micro-nuclear weapons included the Mark 28, an air-dropped weapon with a yield of 5-20 tons of TNT, and the even smaller M46 "Fat Man" Man-Portable Micro-Nuclear Launcher, the warhead of which was developed in Los Alamos, while the launcher was developed in Fort Strong, Massachusetts. Los Alamos also played a role in the development of Microfission and later microfusion cells, as well as the energy weapons powered by the aforementioned cells. Postwar On October 23rd, 2077, Los Alamos was struck by two Chinese nuclear warheads which destroyed most of the city and the above ground portions of the laboratory and killing over 95% of the residents of the city. The majority of the survivors were a few hundred scientists and associated personnel based within the high-security bunker under the laboratory. There they were initially safe from the blast and radiation, but due to the lack of long-term supplies as the bunker was not intended as a vault, but rather an underground lab away from the prying eyes of enemy spies, many of the survivors were forced to scavenge in the pre-war world, leading to all of them becoming ghouls within ten years. A few thousand other survivors of the attacks, mostly in parts of the Jemez Mountains, including the towns of Jemez Springs and Cochiti, as well as Bandalier National Monument were more distant from the explosions, however, they were heavily irradiated and transformed into ghouls as well. 2000 or so people turned into ghouls, many of them quickly went feral, leading to the area becoming infested with feral ghouls which made the area dangerous for unmutated travellers. For the first ten years or so, the ghouls of the Los Alamos bunker were insular, keeping separate even from other ghoul survivors from the nearby area. Eventually, however, they were forced to trade with the outside, and, while they faced prejudice from non-mutated humans, the value of their caches of supplies, were simply too valuable to be ignored. Among the items traded were medical supplies, particularly Rad-X and Rad-Away, as well as radiation suits, which the ghouls no longer had any use for, as well as microfusion cells, which the ghoul scientists retained the knowledge to operate. A few excess energy weapons from the armories, which now held far more weapons than there were surviving non-feral ghouls, were also used as trade items, making energy weapons slightly more common in New Mexico than other regions of the post-war US. In general, traders did not venture beyond the trading posts on the edge of the Reservation at Cochiti and White Rock as, while the radiation from the bombs themselves had decreased to non-lethal levels within 20-40 years, the detonations had destabilized reactors and released high-level nuclear waste stored in warehouses awaiting disposal. This, along with the many feral ghouls that still resided in the ruins of Los Alamos, made the city extremely dangerous for non-mutated humans. Some feral ghouls were even kept fenced off in pens to be released as a defense against attacking raiders, as they would attack humans, but not the ghoul residents. As the area was practically inhabited only by ghouls, by 2100, it had become known as "The Reservation", in an analogy to the pre-war Native American Reservation. Legion Invasion and Liberation In 2271, Caesar's Legion besieged and conquered the post-war city states located around the edge of the ruins of Albuquerque, as well as the surviving pre-war city of Santa Fe. After capturing these cities, the Legion turned their sights on the Reservation and attacked the trading post of White Rock. In one of the worst pre-NCR defeats in Legion history, the ghouls of the Reservation released pens of feral ghouls into the Legion while at the same time sniping at them from the mesatops and canyon walls with energy weapons and then retreating, drawing the Legion further towards the irradiated center of Los Alamos. Over 300 Legionaries were killed, and perhaps as many succumbed to radiation poisoning, given the Legion's rejection of medical technologies such as Rad-Away. While the Legion claimed the Reservation, and kept guards surrounding it, the ghouls never surrendered, and the Legionaries were unable to enter due to the lethal levels of radiation and numerous feral ghouls. In 2283, an NCR-led force liberated the area and the various liberated settlements subsequently set up the Republic of New Mexico. When the Republic was set up, the Reservation originally was reluctant to join, with many members pointing out the prejudice many wastelanders held against ghouls. In the end, the Reservation accepted on the condition that they be given the status as a special autonomous states with control over most local affairs, including a different, lower tax structure, as well as the right to maintain the herds of feral ghouls in all areas except trading towns in order to ensure that the region remains reserved exclusively for ghouls, because many in the community objected to killing ferals that had once been their friends and colleagues. The question of the ferals was a contentious one, but was finally permitted on the condition that the Reservation construct fences to keep the ferals within dedicated areas and to fire on any feral caught leaving the Reservation or approaching a trading town. In exchange, the Reservation provided the Armed Forces of New Mexico with a supply of directed energy weapons, a steady supply of fusion cells, and a dozen volunteers from the Reservation Security- who literally had over 200 years of experience in handling and maintaining the weapons- to train New Mexican troops. As of 2300, the Reservation remains in the Republic of New Mexico, and is known primarily as the largest producer of microfusion cells in the region, becoming a major boost to the regional economy. Geography The Reservation is traditionally considered to include most of the Jemez Mountains, which has a roughly circular "footprint" on the map, being the remains of a group of extinct volcanoes centered around the Valles Caldera, which last erupted 50,000-60,000 years ago. The mountains, which had a maximum elevation of about 11,500 feet were heavily forested with spruce-fir and ponderosa pine woodlands before the war, with pinyon pine and juniper on the lower slopes. After the war, much of the forest on the east side of the mountains were killed by the nuclear detonations, however, the forests on the west slope survived, and by 2100, there was some regrowth even within the blast radius, though the area with a few kilometers of Los Alamos National Laboratory is still heavily irradiated due to the nuclear waste that was released in the detonations, and resembled much of the heavily hit East Coast Wastelands (i.e. the Capital Wasteland and Commonwealth), with little surviving vegetation. Prior to the war, the city of Los Alamos was home to about 12,000 people, however, after the war, only about 150 scientist remained a sapient ghouls by 2100. Within the entire region, there were about 400 sapient ghoul inhabitants, including both the scientists at the bunker and the ghouls. The state of the Reservation in the Republic of New Mexico has one of the smallest population, home to only about 400 people divided between the bunker and the small trading outposts of Jemez Springs, Cochiti, and White Rock. Major Towns and Locations *'Outer Reservation:' The Outer Reservation refers to the edges of Reservation territory, which include the three main trading posts used for trading by the residents. These areas are fenced off from the "Inner Reservation" to prevent feral ghouls from attacking traders. The area is thus free of ferals, with the exception of a few pens of ferals kept near trading posts and entrances that, prior to incorporation into the Republic of New Mexico, were kept as a defense mechanism, to be released if the area was overrun by raiders. **'White Rock': a former bedroom community for scientists at the pre-war Laboratory, the town, located on mesas overlooking the Rio Grande is one of a few trading posts located into the Outer Reservation, and primarily serves traders coming from Santa Fe and Taos to the east, being a stop along a major Albuquerque-Santa Fe caravan route, the "Rio Grande Trail". **'Cochiti:' Before the war, Cochiti was a Native American Pueblo of about 500 inhabitants. When the bombs fell on Los Alamos, located to the north, about 40 survived, all becoming ghouls. located between White Rock and Jemez Pueblo, Cochiti became another stop on the Rio Grande Trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. **'Jemez Springs and Pueblo': Two towns in the Outer Reservation along the Jemez River, north of the town of San Ysidro, considered to be the first town outside the Reservation. Jemez Pueblo was an Native American community before the war which, after the bombs, had only 20 survivors who remained sapient ghouls. Jemez Pueblo and San Ysidro act as a trading center between the Reservation and the outside world, being a stop for most caravans to and from Albuquerque along the Rio Grande Trail. Jemez Springs is located further to the north, along the Jemez River Canyon in the Jemez Mountains. **'The West Slope:' The west slope refers to the western slopes of the Jemez Mountains, located west of Jemez Springs. The was partially shielded from the effects of the bombings in the Great War and such suffered the lowest levels of tree mortality, with most forests surviving the bombings. The area is sparsely populated, but a few lumber camps have been set up, mostly serving the Reservation. *'Inner Reservation': The Inner Reservation includes area where large populations of feral ghouls, as well as the remains of destroyed pre-war reactors, which still produce high levels of radiation remain, and is rarely visited by humans. While the inner reservation covers a large area, most of ferals are located around the ruins of Los Alamos. After the incorporation of the Reservation as an autonomous region of the Republic of New Mexico, the area was fenced off to prevent the escape of the ferals into the surrounding area. **'Los Alamos': The city of Los Alamos was largely annihilated by two nuclear missile strikes in 2077, with the only remains of the city being piles of rubble, concrete foundations, and the steel skeletons of some structures. The only structures to remain standing are a few that were located at the bottom of the multiple canyons that run from the city, being at least partially shielded from the blast. The ruins are home to approximated 2000 feral ghouls, who the residents of the reservation are generally opposed to killing, seeing them as the remains of their former friends and colleague or else simply as a defense mechanism to discourage humans from entering the town. To this day, the area within a few kilometers of Los Alamos remains irradiated and hostile to unmutated humans, being a wasteland of dead trees and ruined structures. The area has few human visitors, and those who few who do so must wear radiation suits or power armor to safely enter the area. About 50 sapient ghouls live in the few surviving pre-war homes or in postwar constructed structures in the ruins of Los Alamos **'The Bunker:' A pre-war bunker that allowed the employees of Los Alamos National Laboratory to survive. The bunker is still the largest settlement in the Reservation, hope to about 200 sapient ghouls, mostly ex-Los Alamos personnel, including director William Clark. The Bunker acts as the "capital" of the Reservation and is also home to the nuclear and chemical laboratories used to recharge microfusion cells and produce medical supplies such as stimpacks and Rad-Away. Behind-the-Scenes This version of the Reservation retains the basic idea of a ghoul homeland in the ruins of Los Alamos, but differs greatly from the location described in the cancelled Black Isle Studios Fallout game, commonly know as Van Buren, in many aspects. Most notably the Reservation in Van Buren are aligned with the Legion, while the Fallout Fanfic Legion are opposed to them. These changes were made both to fit better with the Fallout Fanfiction universe, as well as because the Caesar's Legion we see in Fallout New Vegas would probably not get along well with pre-war ghoul scientists. Category:Locations Category:Post-War Settlements